Princess Peach

For the past couple of days I've been getting reacquainted with my main fighter from the past several Smash Bros installments: Princess Peach. After reading an article about her recently, it occurred to me that perhaps I should detail my own history with this character I may or may not beat you with on Smash Bros. (I'm not really that good, but my friend code is 4296-3311-2359.)

Movie Review #34: Brazil

There's this cool theater in Tuscon called The Loft, which is an independently-run theater that shows primarily limited-release films, art house films, and movies with very specific audiences.

They also like playing old movies, and often show cult classic films at night. It's really cool to be able to see movies in a theater setting long after that chance seems to have passed.

So, last night Laura and I went to see the Terry Gilliam classic Brazil. Short review: this movie hits every note powerfully. It's consistently funny, even when it's terrifying, strange, or outright depressing. If you want to see something you've never seen before, something unapologetically beautiful and dark is a way that Tim Burton can only dream of, the you should maybe see Brazil.

Star Wars: The Old Replublic, Another Saga Over, Part II

With a Imperial plot and a couple of Sith Lords now properly lightsabered to submission/death, and with hutt now free to eat the last remaining species of a nearly-extinct animal so a criminal can find some treasure, let's see what the rest of the crew was up to on Nar Shaddaa.

Star Wars: The Old Republic, Another Saga Over

About two months ago I renewed my subscription to Star Wars: The Old Republic for 60 days. That subscription is coming to an end, and I have no plans to renew it just yet. In short, I have things to do, and the game is quite a distraction.

That said, I made a lot of progress with my characters in the game. All eight of them are at about level 30 now, and I feel pretty accomplished about that. I've never sunk this many hours into an MMO before, and while it's not a habit I intend to maintain forever, the story aspects of SWTOR keep pulling me back, inviting me to see it through to the end.

That said, I'm going to try to review what I've done so far.

Gamestop's Incentives

I spent several blogs going over Gamestop's Circle of Life, the cycle that drives business for the company. As a part of that I explored two of the most notorious things expected of Gamestop employees: convincing customers to pre-order upcoming games and subscribe to their discount card.

I did not, however, make any mention of the incentives the company gives its employees to make such sales. That, I figured, was worth an entire blog on its own.

Mailroom Day

Today, and every Thursday, is my Mailroom Day. It's a concept I came up with to diversify the workload in Fangamer's mailroom, and I think it's been going well. More or less. It was implemented near the beginning of the year, so I think it's time to take stock of its efficacy.

Predictably Irrational

The human mind is a fascinating thing. Though I like to think I have a pretty good understanding of how most people think (or, at least, how people react to certain stimuli), I love expanding that knowledge whenever possible. In particular, I love hearing about experiments in behavioral psychology: the methods, the results, the conclusions we can draw; the whole shebang.

So, when I started listening to an audio book of Predictably Irrational on my journey to and from Seattle a month ago, I was in for a real treat. In short, the book was all that and more.